The European Union has agreed to better secure its external borders, but none of Germany's neighboring states are willing to take any significant number of refugees off her hands.

And Merkel's forceful announcement that she would send asylum-seekers from Kosovo and Albania home more quickly is being hindered by a regulation that says refugees can avoid the authorities' grasp simply by producing a medical certificate.

A Sudanese man snakes along the road on his bicycle.

Most people don't speak a word of German, just a little fragmentary English, but when they see locals, they offer a friendly wave and call out, "Hello!

But what Germany lacks more than anything is a plan to make Merkel's two most-pronounced statements on the crisis -- "We can do it" and "We cannot close our borders" -- fit together.